1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing system equipped with a higher-level device which controls printers and the like on a network as well as to the higher-level device and a printer in the information processing system.
2. Related Background Art
Today, personal computers are spreading at a remarkable pace in offices and networking technology for connecting them is also advancing. Regarding usage of printers, whereas one personal computer is connected conventionally with a single printer, nowadays there are increasing cases in which a printer connected to a network is shared by personal computers (PCs) connected to the network.
In an information processing system in which a printer connected to a network is shared by multiple print client PCs connected to the network in this way, scheduling of print jobs on printers is managed collectively by a print server PC and each print client PC transmits print data to the printer according to instructions from the print server PC. Also, information is obtained from the printer by the print server PC and delivered to the print client PCs.
However, the conventional information processing system described above has the problem that increases in the number of printers managed by the print server PC as well as in the number of print client PCs will also increase information about the print client PCs which is held by the print server PC, making it time-consuming for the print server PC to perform internal processing such as information searches, thus resulting in performance degradation of the entire print system.